Norazza PocketRAID takes data redundancy on the road

Prebuilt RAID arrays are pretty mainstream now, but they're usually massive in size and focused on sheer storage volume -- two qualities Norazza's PocketRAID eschews in the name of portable data redundancy. The 1.5-inch thick PocketRAID contains what we're assuming is two 1.8-inch hard drives in a permanent RAID 1 configuration, allowing you to work with up to 320GB of data on the road without fear. The eSATA / USB 2.0 drives are shipping now, if you've got the coin -- prices range from $439 for 120GB to a whopping $929 for 320GB of storage.

[shadowsbane0 @ Nov 13th 2007 3:38PM]

Theiving little SOB's. I've been working this idea in a RAID 5 configuration for about two years now. :(

[Simon @ Nov 13th 2007 3:42PM]

Cheer up, this is RAID 1 ;-)

[Thunderbuck @ Nov 13th 2007 3:50PM]

For God's sake, WHY??!

I can just imagine... "Is that a RAID in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

I can only guess that this is for the uber-geek who wants as much capacity in his pocket as he can get. Otherwise, the entire concept is questionable. Had they given it an LCD and media player functionality (or even just an ethernet interface), that might have been marginally defensible, but this is just silly.

[Derrick @ Nov 13th 2007 4:01PM]

You must drive a VW to own this product per the photo above.

[Mammoth @ Nov 13th 2007 6:28PM]

Bentley also uses that same key.

[Andy Shokry @ Nov 13th 2007 7:00PM]

and Audi... Mercedes used to.

[muddyh2o @ Nov 13th 2007 4:28PM]

does this one ship with a virus pre-installed (no extra charge) as well?

[JamesR @ Nov 13th 2007 4:45PM]

"Permanent Raid 1 configuration".

I didn't know you could get 1.8" drives at 320G...

[JamesR @ Nov 13th 2007 4:49PM]

From their site: "PR320 is 160x2 = 320G."

You get 320G of drives but only 160G of storage.

Still pretty neat :).

[Egfrow @ Nov 13th 2007 4:55PM]

The G-Raid mini is a little cheaper but also just slightly larger and uses RAID0 stripped.

[Chris @ Nov 13th 2007 5:03PM]

This makes no sense. 2 x 160GB drives in a RAID 1 (mirror) equals 160GB of "total storage". 2 x 160GB @ RAID 0 (stripe) would make it 320GB.

[craig @ Nov 13th 2007 5:08PM]

Ignoring the author's inability to calculate effective capacities and the remarkably high prices, this product doesn't make any sense. As a backup drive, RAID 1 is stupid. It's a backup drive after all. As a main drive, you wouldn't want to use 1.8" because of the performance. Anyone who thinks this is the answer to their problem needs to rethink the problem.

[TKWarrior @ Nov 13th 2007 6:08PM]

Agreed. You really have to think what problem this is actually solving. If anything, this is a great idea, 5 years too late.

Most people now have some king of flash based memory to take with them. And at $400-$1000, you can now get a similar size solid state drive that's more reliable/durable and faster.

Anyone who needs that much portable storage with redundancy would also have a copy of any important files stored somewhere else or on-line. Doesn't matter if it's RAID 1, 5, 6, or whatever if it's lost or stolen.

[poco153 @ Nov 13th 2007 6:12PM]

Were this a backup array, then you would be correct. The fact that it is portable is what makes RAID 1 a great idea. After all, hard dives tend to be fragile little things. If you need a lot of space on the go, an external drive is the best way to go. Tossing an external drive around is going to cause it to die faster, thus losing the data on the drive. Having a large capacity and offering a mirrored array is great becasue you can toss it around without having to worry about the single hard drive - there's a backup.

There are a number of benefits to having the mirror - say the one drive dies while you're away at a conference. With a single external drive, you'd be lost. The RAID 1 array could get you out of some tight spots, improbable as they may seem.

[craig @ Nov 13th 2007 8:40PM]

Unfortunately, the backup drive in the array is ALSO being tossed around and is likely to die faster. Anyone who is doing work on an external, bus-powered slow drive like this AND is not backing that data up on an entirely separate device is foolish. I doubt there's anyone like that.

Anyone away at a conference already has a backup of the data on an external drive. It's on his primary drive in his laptop. If all you travel with is a portable drive AND the data you have on that drive is critical, then you travel with two drives. Doing so eliminates failures of common components such as the bridge electronics, it simplifies the process, and it reduces the likelihood of multiple failures.

This design makes no sense.

[Charles @ Nov 13th 2007 6:39PM]

am i missing something...or are both drives in the same case. since the point of RAID is to protect the data, this doesn't make much sense because both drives will be subject to the same forces. only thing i can see useful here is protection when the MTBF of the drives is different.... just my opinion

[Joe @ Nov 13th 2007 8:43PM]

I have a new sample unit Pocket RAID that Norazza says it will launch at CES if not sooner. It's essentially the same unit except it has a mode change switch on the unit that lets the user decide what the storage mode will be. Options include:
RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD, BIG, SAFE33, and SAFE50. The transfer speeds using RAID 0 on the eSATA port is very fast. Another cool feature on this Pocket RAID unit is "drive locking" which helps you protect your data by allowing you to password lock your directly attached and cascaded drives. If a locked drive is detached from its assigned computer or cascade, the data on the drives is inaccessible until it is reconnected and unlocked by the user supplied password.

Support for RAID 0 (FAST), RAID 1 (SAFE) and JBOD are cool, but I found the BIG, SAFE33 and SAFE50 modes very interesting. BIG concatenates all drives into one large virtual drive, while SAFE33 and SAFE50 create safe RAID 1 partitions and use the remaining capacity for concatenated storage. Depending on how you configure the Pocket RAID, you can create sophisticated storage constructions. With the drive locking feature and added end user flexibility, I think this product has some potential.

[craig @ Nov 14th 2007 9:22AM]

These features make the device more capable but I still don't see the potential. The SAFE modes, while they sound interesting on the surface, are useful only to the extent that RAID 1 is useful (and I've already explained why it's not). The BIG and JBOD modes are easy to do but offer nothing of value over RAID 0. That only leaves RAID 0 as an interesting feature, yet the G-Raid Mini already exists as a bus-powered RAID 0 device. The G-Raid Mini supports larger, faster 2.5" drives and it has a much nicer chassis. I have one, it works great, and it's very fast. Even with these extra "features" I'm having a hard time seeing the value other than it's physically smaller than a G-Raid mini. For a portable drive I'd rather have FW800 than ESATA (at least until ESATA becomes standard in notebooks). This seems to be based on what they can do rather than what they need to do.